Department of Pathology, Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
J Immunol. 2011 Dec 1;187(11):5505-9. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1102039. Epub 2011 Oct 24.
Natural helper (NH) cells are recently discovered innate immune cells that confer protective type 2 immunity during helminth infection and mediate influenza-induced airway hypersensitivity. Little is known about the ontogeny of NH cells. We report in this study that NH cells derive from bone marrow lymphoid progenitors. Using RAG-1Cre/ROSA26(YFP) mice, we show that most NH cells are marked with a history of RAG-1 expression, implying lymphoid developmental origin. The development of NH cells depends on the cytokine receptor Flt3, which is required for the efficient generation of bone marrow lymphoid progenitors. Finally, we demonstrate that lymphoid progenitors, but not myeloid-erythroid progenitors, give rise to NH cells in vivo. This work therefore expands the lymphocyte family, currently comprising T, B, and NK cells, to include NH cells as another type of innate lymphocyte that derives from bone marrow lymphoid progenitors.
自然辅助 (NH) 细胞是最近发现的先天免疫细胞，它们在寄生虫感染期间赋予保护性 2 型免疫，并介导流感诱导的气道过敏。关于 NH 细胞的个体发生知之甚少。本研究报道 NH 细胞源自骨髓淋巴样祖细胞。使用 RAG-1Cre/ROSA26(YFP) 小鼠，我们表明大多数 NH 细胞都带有 RAG-1 表达的历史标记，这暗示了其淋巴样发育起源。NH 细胞的发育依赖于细胞因子受体 Flt3，它是有效产生骨髓淋巴样祖细胞所必需的。最后，我们证明了淋巴样祖细胞而不是骨髓髓系-红细胞祖细胞在体内产生 NH 细胞。因此，这项工作扩展了淋巴细胞家族，目前包括 T、B 和 NK 细胞，将 NH 细胞作为另一种源自骨髓淋巴样祖细胞的先天淋巴细胞纳入其中。
